Please vote for SAFE and GREEN!

Just a reminder... to put this on your to-do list for every day through 4/22!

I have a big favor to ask: please consider helping SafetyBeltSafe U.S.A. in the FACEBOOK competition for funding for the Top 40 of 200 projects nationwide.

SAFE and GREEN was initiated last year and has 3 prongs: 1) helping families to recognize if a seat can be shared with a friend/relative; 2)directing lower-income families to distribution programs for new seats; 3) developing a drop-off network of sites in the Los Angeles area where unusable safety seats can be left for pick up by TMC Horizon, the ONLY recycler in the area that truly repurposes the materials, doesn't send them to the landfill.

There is more about the project at www.carseat.org , and one can click on "Voting" on the Home page to get to the site. The direct url is https://www.state-assist.com/cause/3472/safe-and-green

Deborah

Ten Clicks to Boost Booster Project

Good morning,

This morning (Sunday) I remembered to VOTE!  Here's what I'm voting for:

Safety Belt Safe U.S.A. is vying for a $25,000 grant from State Farm to run a booster seat project in Pasadena, CA.  With grant funding so short these days, we all need to support each other.  You can help -- without sending a dime.  All you need to do is go to the FaceBook page and vote. 
http://www.facebook.com/statefarm/app_376288832400015?app_data=Boosters-Are-For-Big-Kids

You can vote 10 times (just 10 clicks) each day from now until May 17th.  If everyone signed onto this blog did this, we would be giving them almost 5,000 votes!

I must confess I had to look up my FaceBook password, but now I'm in, it is simple. I even put "Vote for SBS USA" into my computer's calendar with a reminder!

So please vote for a cause we can ALL support.  And while you are at it, please ask your colleagues to vote, too.

Deborah

Shopping With Kids Can Be More Than Difficult—It Can Be Downright Dangerous!-DD

Over time, they say, parents remember only the good times and block out the difficult ones.  Why, then, do I have such vivid memories of grocery shopping with young children?    

With an infant in tow, this outing was always a dreaded struggle for me.  One day I’d try carrying the baby in a front pack, the next a backpack.  Maybe shopping using the baby stroller? Each plan I’d devise seemed workable, but I’d nonetheless leave the grocery store a frazzled mess with a fraction of my intended purchases.

Back in those days, we had another option:  infant CRs had built-in clips so they could be attached to the seating area of the shopping cart.  Aside from posing a fall hazard, I found that, once attached, I couldn’t get the darn thing back off the cart!  My fumbling attempts to remove the device from the cart were enough to convince me—riding atop a shopping cart isn’t safe for baby!

Of course, today’s CR manufacturers all agree.  These clips are long gone from today’s models and all say that CRs should never be used in or on shopping carts.  So it was certainly sad for me to hear that a Macon, GA, 3-month-old died just a few months ago when, strapped into his infant seat, he toppled off a cart in a grocery store parking lot.

This spurred my interest in researching shopping cart safety, and I was really surprised by what I learned.  For instance, did you know that in the U.S. we have a voluntary standard for shopping cart safety, but that this standard fails to address basic stability issues?  And that several years ago, the AAP formally requested, to no avail, that the Consumer Product Safety Commission revise these standards to help prevent the more than 21,000 annual injuries to children under five due to shopping cart incidences?  

This and other interesting facts about the shopping cart as an oft-overlooked transportation risk to children can be found in the most current issue of SRN.  This article has also been posted at www.saferidenews.com.  Denise Donaldson

When a Picture is Worth More Than 10,000 Words…

SRN Website Invites You to a Gallery of the Oddities of the LATCH World

The newest feature on our website is the LATCH Gallery. It‘s like a rogue’s gallery, featuring the unusual, if not to say “weird,” LATCH anchors we’ve found in vehicles.

Denise and Katrina, SRN’s crack LATCH vehicle team, started the gallery by collecting photos of anchors they’ve seen while visiting auto shows and checking vehicles. Simply by taking a stroll through the gallery you will find it easier to recognize the possible variations, making trouble-shooting in the field easier for CPSTs.

I’m sure our intrepid LATCH investigators haven’t seen every odd anchor out there. If you have found an unusual configuration hiding in a vehicle, please inform all of us by contributing photos to the gallery.

You’ll find a submission form on our LATCH Gallery page.

Deborah

An accident “waiting to happen”

... did happen, just as I was writing an editorial on school bus safety improvements for the December issue of Safe Ride News. A fatal crash occurred in Texas that illustrates many of the benefits and conundrums of school bus standards and occupant restraints. The outcome was no "accident."

The facts (from KTXS News)

Scene: November 4, 2011, south of Abilene, Texas

Crash: single-vehicle end-over-end rollover; vehicle traveling65 mph in 70 mph zone

Vehicle: 24-passenger bus (not a school bus), 16 occupants

Restraints: seat belts were available for all, but only the driver was using a belt

Injuries: 1 death (Anabel Reid), 15 injuries including 4 critical; twelve occupants were ejected when fiberglass roof tore off

Lessons to learn:

• Use of school buses for student transport is required only for young people of high-school age or below. College and university students can be transported in any type of bus, no questions asked.
• School bus-body strength standards (FMVSS 220 and 221) would not allow a flimsy fiberglass roof that could tear off in a crash, as happened here.
• State law in Texas does not require occupants in buses to wear available seat belts.

The message that seat belts are “not needed” in large school buses has been well learned. It very likely influenced these students to ignore the available belts, despite the fact that they were riding in a very different type of bus. This type of bus does not have the built-in protections of a school bus body (even one without seat belts). How ironic it is that the belts that could have prevented many/most/all of the ejections/injuries/deaths were present but left unused.

So now do we have to teach college students and others the differences between ordinary buses and school buses, so they will know to buckle up if they are NOT in a school bus? Better, I say, to get ALL buses up to the body strength of school buses as well as seat belts on buses of all types.

Deborah Davis Stewart

P.S. For a photo of the roof torn off the bus, see KTXS News, ACU Bus Crash: Driver Was Only One Wearing Seat Belt - Abilene News Story - KTXS Abilene

Bravo, California!!!

Cudos to the dedicated and persistent CPS Advocates and like-minded legislators who finally achieved an important change in the California CPS law.

After five years of effort, a bill was signed today (10/4/11) by Governor Jerry Brown raising the CR requirement from 6 and 60 pounds to 8 years.

It has an exemption for kids who are medically unfit (including over 4'9"). It includes a "correct belt fit" requirement for kids, so older kids may come under the requirement, depending on fit in their vehicle (5-step test).

California, which had been among the first states to pass a “booster law,” had seen two vetoes (by Gov. Schwartzenegger) of earlier attempts. The fight has been long but worthwhile, since we all know that a well publicized change like this can influence many caregivers’ behavior.

This reminds me that we all need to keep in mind that CPS education is only one part of a comprehensive effort to protect children’s lives:

Education

Legislation/Enforcement

Engineering/Standards

True CPS advocacy involves awareness of and support for all these aspects.

Fighting for years for improving legislation is one of the toughest struggles. Our California colleagues and Governor Brown deserve our thanks!

Deborah

The details of the revised law are at:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0901-0950/sb_929_bill_209_bill_20111004_chaptered.pdf


Crossed off the to-do list!—DS

With weeks full of graduations, birthdays, a newsletter to get out, and trip planning, you would think we had a full enough plate. However, Denise and I were pleased to add to the list, the opportunity to send suggestions to the CPS Board for the major revision of the curriculum.

We worked overtime with Cheryl Kim of Safety Belt Safe USA to review the current curriculum and provide our feedback. Our focus centered on all the places where LATCH is discussed, including a suggested reorganization of Chapter 6, additional material on tethers for rear facing car seats to Chapter 9, new FAQs on LATCH for the Appendix.

Our editorial in the issue of SRN that’s at the printer right now (May/June) deals with the continuing concern about tether anchor weights that we have expressed to the board.

It will be a huge task and we greatly appreciate the work that we know lies ahead for all the board members!

Deborah